--- title: "Google Caught Taking Money to Promote AI Apps That Create Nonconsensual Nudes" description: "Google is allowing paid-for promoted links to AI apps that expressly help users make nonconsensual deepfake nudes, 404 Media reports." date: "2024-08-07" modified: "2024-08-07" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-promoting-ai-apps-nonconsensual" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Google" tags: - "ai" - "Google" - "nonconsensual deepfakes" - "the digest" --- # Google Caught Taking Money to Promote AI Apps That Create Nonconsensual Nudes ![Google is allowing paid-for promoted links to AI apps that expressly help users make nonconsensual deepfake nudes, 404 Media reports.]() *\Image: Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty / Futurism\* ## False Profit Google is taking money to promote AI apps that produce nonconsensual deepfake nudes, [new reporting from *404 Media* reveals](). As caught by *404*, searches for terms like "undress apps" and "best deepfake nudes" display paid advertisements for websites offering services like "NSFW AI Image Generator" and other readily available AI tools that can be used to create explicit imagery of real people without their consent. Google has drawn widespread criticism over its failure to curb the proliferation of AI deepfakes of real people in its search results, which have historically been ridiculously easy — as in, [one-search-query-and-one-click-away-level]() easy — to find on the search giant's platform. In response to this criticism, Google *just last week* [announced]() that it would expand existing search policies to "help people affected" by the "non-consensual sexually explicit fake content" that crops up in its search pages. But *404's* reporting reveals that Google's deepfake problem also exists on its ad side, where the search giant is actively profiting from promoted posts advertising some of the exact same AI services that help bad actors make invasive and nonconsensual explicit content in the first place. ## Pro Active Google has reportedly taken action to delist the specific advertisements and websites flagged by *404's* journalists, with a spokesperson for Google telling the outlet that services designed "to create synthetic sexual or nude content are prohibited from advertising through any of our platforms or generating revenue through Google Ads." Per *404*, the spokesperson added that the search giant is "actively investigating this issue and will permanently suspend advertisers who violate our policy, removing all their ads from our platforms." But according to *404*, the spokesperson didn't address questions regarding why advertisers were allowed to pay Google to promote links for search terms like "undress app" to begin with, which seems to be the core of the issue. Deepfaked porn is harmful to its victims. And with easily accessible AI deepfake tools in public hands, a new wave of troubling instances involving the creation of nonconsensual fake nudes — particularly cases in middle and high schools, where [school systems]() and [law enforcement]() are struggling with how to police it — continue to make news. As for Google, [the website where most people go to find stuff](), it clearly has a long way to go in its effort to mitigate the rising tide of deepfakes on the web — not to mention the searchability of the tools plainly designed to make them. **More on deepfakes:** [*Schoolchildren Sentenced for AI-Generating Nudes of Their Classmates*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()